My boyfriend and I have been dating around five years. Almost two years ago (it’ll be two years in November), he was severely beaten by a dirty undercover cop. I was there and witnessed the whole thing.

He comes from a good family and has never been in trouble before. The incident was horrible, and he has some brain damage from the beating. Before the incident, he was very calm and loving, and we had a great relationship. There were some problems, but we seemed to be able to manage them.

After the incident happened, he’s completely changed. I’ve been there for him as much as I can. I testified at his criminal case (he was found not guilty), was emotionally there for him, and cleaned for him as much as I could. However, as time has passed, I’ve become resentful of cleaning for him and the impact it’s had on our relationship.

His place is unsanitary, not just messy- messy I can deal with. Food left out everywhere, garbage not thrown out. He rarely showers or leaves his place. He plays video games all day to escape his depression. I have started telling him that If I’m going to come over to visit him (we don’t live together), he needs to clean our hang out area, at the very least.

However, he rarely does this, and I walk into his place, and it’s filthy, and I become upset with him. Sometimes I’ll start cleaning for him so that I can hang out there and not feel utterly disgusted. Other times I will say nothing and try to suck it up. Then there are the times when I feel angry about the whole thing so I’ll voice my frustration and he says I’m attacking him and “on his case.” He’s going to therapy and EMDR, and we have a couple’s therapist, but I don’t see a lot of changes in his behavior. He says he’s getting better, but I’m having trouble seeing it.

Recently, we’ve been fighting a lot more, and he’s started throwing things around. One time he smashed a chair into the floor. The fight we had a few days ago was horrible. I came over, and he played video games for a few hours, and I started getting frustrated, telling him that I didn’t come over to sit in the background while he plays video games. I wasn’t that nice about it, and I realize this. However, I didn’t call him names or scream at him I was just very direct and frustrated. He completely snapped and threw around an end table with glass on the top and glass went flying everywhere. He punched a hole through his wall and also grabbed my purse out of my hand and threw it across the room. I felt scared for both of our safety. Then, he curled up on the floor and was sobbing saying he can’t do this anymore and said he wanted to off himself. He also said, as he’s said when this has happened before, that I pushed him to do this and that he wouldn’t have done this if I didn’t push him.

I eventually left – I didn’t want to because I was worried about him, but he insisted as he said he wasn’t sure what he was capable of. He was right to insist, I know that, but it tears me up inside that I left when he was in such a bad condition. I emailed his mom and close friend and told them to please check up on him because I’ve very worried. His friend was nasty and said that I shouldn’t have left him and that contacting his mom was a horrible thing to do.

I feel in my heart that I had to let his mom know, but I still feel tremendous guilt from 1) pushing him to do this by again voicing my frustrations with our relationship 2) telling his mom and close friend. I guess I’m wondering what everyone else’s take is on this as the guilt is eating away at me. Some moments I feel as if I did what I had to do. I had no way of knowing if he was going to hurt himself or not. Other moments I feel terrible at that possibility that I handled it in the wrong way.